Managing the Future

M Millett Stephen

Description

A guide to forecasting and strategic planning for organizations

Sujets

• 21st century
• Service innovation
• Strategic management

Informations

• Publié par: Triarchy Press
• Date de parution: 30 novembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781908009609
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

First edition published in 2011 by:
Triarchy Press
Station Offices
Axminster
Devon. EX13 5PF
United Kingdom
[phone]
[e-mail]
www.triarchypress.com
Published in this edition 2012.
© Futuring Associates LLC, 2011.
The right of Stephen Millett to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including photocopying, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover design by Heather Fallows ~ www.whitespacegallery.org.uk
ISBN: 9781908009609
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1. Continuity and Change
Futuring Principle 1: The future will be some unknown combination of continuity and change.
Time’s Arrow
Time’s Target: The Future
Chaos, Chance, and Randomness
Time as Both Continuity and Discontinuity
A Case Study: Continuity and Change in the European Union
Chapter 2. Anticipating the Future
Futuring Principle 2: The future can be anticipated with varying degrees of uncertainty depending upon conditions.
Uncertainty in Time and the Future
Theoretical Sources of Predictability
Revelation and Divination
Laws of Nature
Trend Momentum
Cause-and-Effect Relationships and Sequences
Closed Systems and Fixed Sets
Knowledge of Intentions
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
A Case Study: Trends in American Consumer Value to 2050
Chapter 3. Futuring and Visioning
Futuring Principle 3: Futuring and visioning are different but complementary perspectives of the future.
Millett’s Hourglass
The Perspective of Futuring
The Perspective of Visioning
The Tilting Hourglass
A Case Study: Trends with Opportunities But No Strategic Technologies
Chapter 4. Well Considered Expectations – Potential Errors and Remedies
Futuring Principle 4: The best forecasts and plans are methodically generated and provide well considered expectations for the future.
Predispositions
Self-Interest and Wishful Thinking
The Recency Effect
False Starting Points and Assumptions
Omissions and Unexpected Events
Lack of Information
Too Much and Incorrect Information
Vagueness
Misapproximations
Poor Packaging
Lack of Ownership
Inadequate Resources, Personnel, and Budgets
A Case Study: Prospects for Long-Term Economic Growth in India
Chapter 5. Updating Forecasts with Trend Tracking
Futuring Principle 5: There is no such thing as an immutable forecast or plan for an immutable future. Forecasts and plans must be continuously monitored, evaluated, and revised according to new data and conditions in order to improve real-time frameworks for making long-term decisions and strategies.
Type I Pattern Recognition (Background)
Type II Pattern Recognition (Signals)
Type III Pattern Recognition (Data Arrays)
A Case Study: The Updating and Pattern Recognition of Economic Growth in India
Chapter 6. Managing Futuring
Step 1: Identification of the Project Goals, Resources, and Assignments
Step 2: Topic Question
Step 3: Selection of Descriptors
Step 4: Descriptor Research and Analysis
Step 5: Interactions Among Descriptors
Step 6: Forecasts
Scenarios
Chapter 7. Managing Visioning
Preferred Futures
Visionary Leadership
Participatory Visioning
Strategic Capabilities, Technologies, and Assets
Planning
1. Mission Statement
2. Goals and Priorities
3. Current Business Lines and Their Performance
4. Strategic Capabilities, Technologies, and Assets
5. Customers and Markets
6. Competitors, Competitive Advantages, and Market Positioning
7. Significant Trends and Their Potential Impacts
8. Strategies
9. Resources, Investments, and Budgets
10. Assignments and Responsibilities
11. Schedules, Milestones, and Metrics of Achievement
12. Contingencies
Chapter 8. Managing Applications and Benefits
Anticipating Changing Customers, Markets, and Competitors
Envisioning Potential New Products and Services
Thought Leadership
Teaching the Learning Organization and Changing Corporate Culture
Risk Management
Strategic Planning
Visionary Leadership
Chapter 9. Managing Expectations
Your Expectations for Your Business
Your Expectations for Others
Your Expectations for Yourself
Expectations for You
Expectations for the Future of Futuring and Visioning
About the Author
About Triarchy Press
Index
Related Titles from Triarchy Press
Dedicated with much love to my generational futures: Jennie, Annie, Brandee, Wendi, Ellie, Maggie, Anderson, and Natalie
Introduction
When I was a graduate student in history at Ohio State some 40 years ago, I saw a cartoon that in effect asked: Why study history? There’s no future in it! This joke became no laughing matter for me, as I have spent a career using my education in history to explore the future. When I finished my doctorate, I went on active duty with the US Air Force as a humanities instructor at the fully accredited residential School of Engineering of the Air Force Institute of Technology. I think of that assignment as my post-doctoral education, whereby I learned how to think like, and work closely with, scientists, technologists, and mathematicians. I became increasingly interested in applying history to solving problems, too.
In 1979, I resigned my commission and joined the staff of the Battelle Memorial Institute in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio. As the world’s largest private, nonprofit technology research and management institution, Battelle was somewhat of an odd place for a person with a doctorate in history to land, but my professional education and my Air Force experience served me remarkably well working with engineers, systems analysts, economists, and management consultants on forecasting projects. My earliest scenario projects were with aerospace and defense companies, which closely matched my expertise in American diplomatic, modern European, and Russian history. I went on to apply scenario analysis and other forecasting methods to all kinds of companies that were asking the same types of questions about the future. I consequently spent a career of 27 years at Battelle and managed well over 100 major projects for corporations, non-profit organizations, and government agencies in the US, Canada, Mexico, Europe, India, and Japan. I continue my work today with my own research and consulting company.
As a futurist, I call my type of work “applied history.” I taught history as an adjunct instructor at several universities, so I was doing some “academic history” in the traditional sense of teaching and research. I was also publishing in my fields of expertise. My bread and butter employment, however, made me an applied historian. I was applying historical techniques (e.g. primary and secondary research into the past, critical judgment and reasoned speculation, and the consideration of alternative possible pasts – counterfactual history) to the futuring methods of trend analysis, expert judgment, and scenarios. I could use what I had learned about interpreting historical evidence for disciplined speculation about the past to help me think about the future. I could help my clients structure the boundaries of uncertainty and plan for the future within ranges of probabilities. Contingency planning in diplomatic and military history was just as viable as contingency planning for business strategies. I could use both history and futuring to help my clients with their needs in long-term strategic planning, emerging technology assessments, new product development, and risk management.
When explaining to clients what I do, I prefer to use the term “futuring” rather than forecasting. Too often people think that “forecasting” means computer models, formulas, and numbers. It is what statisticians, systems analysts, econometricians, insurance actuaries, and financial analysts do. It is highly quantitative. “Futuring” combines qualitative with quantitative methods and may take the form of stories rather than figures. It also suggests “doing” as well as “understanding,” since the purpose of futuring is to form well considered expectations for the future to use in visioning for strategy-making, planning, and acting today to influence (if not make) desirable futures. I did not care for the term “foretelling,” which at one time was used by the scenario writers at Shell, as it sounded too much like “fortune telling,” which was not at all the mental image that I wanted to convey. In this book, I have used “forecasting” as a synonym for “futuring,” but with the understanding that “forecasting” means framing expectations for better tomorrows.
I hate the 1960s terms “futurism” and “futurology.” They suggest visions of the future that border on science fiction, which would not typically go over well with corporations in the late 20 th and early 21 st centuries. I also do not like the work of futurists who rely almost exclusively on visioning to generate highly aspirational, normative, and idiosyncratic predictions without the context of forecasting trends in the external environment. I feel that this approach to thinking about the future relies too heavily on wishful thinking. I do respect the more recent term “foresight” to embrace both the pursuit of likely futures (forecasts) and visioning (preferred futures).
The product of futuring, like forecasting, is a forecast. The result of “futuring” certainly is not “the future,” although it could be “a future” as one of several possible futures. The result of visioning is not just the strategic plan but the operations that achieve its goals. The product of visioning may well be “the future” to the extent that one has the capabilities, resources, cooperation, and even good luck